The Last Lie

Thankfully, Alan and Lauren Gregory aren't on the guestlist when their affluent new neighbours - a legend in women's rights law and his beautiful wife - host a housewarming party that starts a devastating chain of events for everyone involved. The following morning, a rape accusation rocks the town of Boulder. And though Lauren, a deputy DA, learns facts that she can't share with Alan, he discovers that he has a most unusual perspective into what truly happened after the housewarming.

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White is the bestselling author of 'The Seige' - a book I've never read but have heard about. In his past, he apparently practised full time as "two of only about a dozen psychologists in the country working in pediatric oncology" (from his site bibliography, here). This background in psychology explains the heavy focus on it in his book and also may explain why reading his writing felt a little like watching Frasier, if Frasier was only a one person show without any other characters for comedy releif.

Many of the chapters feature the two main characters (whose names I can't even be bothered to remember, so we shall just call them Dr. Doodad and Ms. Long Skirt. Ms. Long Skirt is a psychiatrist with a client who has suffered a traumatic rape and who doubts her recollections of the event. Dr. Doodad is 'supervising' Ms. Long Skirt (i.e. providing counselling for her as a counsellor) with her current client load. Over three hundred and fifty or so pages, Dr. Doodad and Ms. Long Skirt have long and overly detailed conversations about the rape case. There is a mystery. People are hiding things. Dr. Doodad tries to do his own snooping around.

Meanwhile, stuff is happening with the characters. There is something about the protagonists dog that the neighbours don't like. The protagonist's wife has MS. The villain is kind of bland. The villain's wife is equally bland.White gives me a lot of detail, but somehow I just can't get to caring about any of the characters.

My main bugbear with this book was that there was too much inner dialogue from the main character. I felt like the guy was too clever for his own good, a little pompous and just dull - like the narrative.

Yes, there's a mystery and - yes, the protagonist helps solve it - so if that's all you're looking for in a novel, you'll probably like this one. For me, this was a hard read. It dragged and dragged and the ending was a disappointment too (it was a releif to get there, at least). I'm not sure if White's other novels are better, but I don't think I'll be seeking them out anytime soon.

hbs135
Jun 11, 2012

had to keep renewing it - still at the middle of the book and wondering if it will get to the point.